


Looking Too Closely

by pacebrows



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Cas-centric, Dean Bears The Mark of Cain, Mark of Cain, POV Castiel, Road Trip, Season 9, it is no longer canon compliant but ya know, it is what it is, this was written during season 9
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-03
Updated: 2015-04-03
Packaged: 2018-03-20 23:33:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3669303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pacebrows/pseuds/pacebrows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel sighs and crosses his legs under him, tapping the phone on his knee absently as he considers the question.  How are things?  He’s not entirely sure, if he’s going to be completely honest with himself.  He’s not technically dying at the moment, so that’s good, a marked improvement in the grand scheme of associating with the Winchesters, but he’s not exactly sure how alive he is at the moment or how long he can maintain this particular mode of existence or what’s going to happen in the near future and also there’s the question of the twenty odd angels bunked up in this motel so - difficult to answer.  </p><p>Everything’s fine, he types in response.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Looking Too Closely

**Author's Note:**

> so a few months ago my sister sent my boyfriend a link to my AO3 and i flipped out and deleted all but 1 of my fics SO HAAHA!!! the boyfriend is no more, and i am v attached to my fics so i thought i would repost what i could find. i wrote this last year when i was watching season 9 episodes three days after they aired on the world's slowest dial-up internet in the universe. my semester in argentina was a lonely time LOL. this got a lot angstier than i had intended, but c'est la vie and c'est dean et castiel. title is from the song by fink.

The American motel room is, to the road-weary drifter, a source of soothing constancy in an existence characterized by transience and inconstancy.  Castiel has become intimately acquainted with the cookie cutter sameness of the American motel room since his introduction to the Winchesters, and he’s found in his time on Earth that it is easy to feel at home when one is homeless in these rooms that vary little from one another, that it’s easy to overlook the differences in the wallpaper or in the  generic watercolor prints that hang above the beds that always seem to be in the exact same place in every different room - two of them side by side, facing the same ancient television, separated by the same faux-wood nightstand holding the same Gideon bible in the top drawer.

 

He’s in a random motel room in a random town in the heartland of America.  The television is tuned to useless public access programming.  He’s in his boxers on top of the scratchy nylon comforter, his shoulders and neck propped up by the headboard, a sweating bottle of beer held in his hand and resting on his chest.  A drop of condensation runs from the bottle down his chest towards his bellybutton, and he watches it disinterestedly.  He’s tired.  He’s used to tired by now, but he feels it more profoundly the more his stolen grace drains away.  Metatron was right - he’s getting burned out, but he’d rather not think about it just now.  He sighs, squeezing his eyes shut and using his free hand to pinch the bridge of his nose.  He’s so damn tired.  

His phone buzzes from the end of the bed, and he hauls himself up and reaches for it.  He places the beer bottle on the side table, ignoring the cardboard coaster and letting condensation make a ring on the laminate surface.  It’s a text from Dean.

**howre things?**

Castiel sighs and crosses his legs under him, tapping the phone on his knee absently as he considers the question.  How  _are_ things?  He’s not entirely sure, if he’s going to be completely honest with himself.  He’s not technically dying at the moment, so that’s good, a marked improvement in the grand scheme of associating with the Winchesters, but he’s not exactly sure how  _alive_ he is at the moment or how long he can maintain this particular mode of existence or what’s going to happen in the near future and also there’s the question of the twenty odd angels bunked up in this motel so - difficult to answer.  

_Everything’s fine,_ he types in response.  He’s not sure he wants to have a conversation like this with Dean at the moment, and for the first time in a long time he doesn’t feel like he owes Dean any sort of explanation.  Not the way things are right now.

They’ve been doing this more often, texting back and forth.  Never for very long, and the conversations are never really conversations, more……status updates than anything else.  Castiel doesn’t trust himself with his Dean-centric emotions at the moment.  He doesn’t really understand them and when he starts thinking about Dean too heavily what starts out as an affectionate thought turns into fear for him and what he’s done, and once he’s reminded himself about the Mark that fear turns into blinding rage and his bogus credit card gets charged extra for whatever damage he’s done to his room that night.  So he doesn’t dwell, and they don’t really talk.

**thats good. what r u doing? howre your ducklings?**

Castiel smiles in spite of himself.  They do trail after him more than he’d like.  They were getting better with the whole freedom of thought thing, but it took him long enough to get it right so he figures he has to be patient.  He’s working on patience.  

_They’re fine, too. We’re still trying to find more who are willing to join the cause. It’s proving difficult. There are still many who haven’t forgiven me for what I’ve done._

**u gotta stop beating urself up for that, man. its in the past and you did your penance.**

_So you keep telling me._

**cuz its true. how far did u drive today?**

_A few hundred miles.  I’m tired of farmland.  I want to take them to the beach but the midwest seems neverending._

**ur in the midwest??? where**

Castiel swallows.  He hadn’t meant to give that away.  He’d been refusing to tell Dean where he was, where he was going, if for nothing else as self-preservation.  He hated and loved Dean in equal measure, and historically, his sense of right and wrong and forward thinking had been compromised if Dean was involved.  After so long under some cosmic thumb or another, Castiel had been given the chance to make his own way, and while he loathed the circumstances that had given it to him, he refused to sacrifice this chance.  

His thumb hovers over his phone’s screen for a minute before he types,  _Somewhere safe. Goodnight, Dean._

**how far r u?? r u in kansas**

**cas??**

**goodnight then.**

——————

They collect five more angels over the next week.  They’re bunked in another motel, exactly like the last one except that this one has a still life of a bowl of oranges over the bed.  They’re about three hundred miles out of Lebanon, and Castiel feels comforted by the distance because tonight he doesn’t have to fight with the part of him that remembers that he has a car and could make it to the Bunker in less than two hours.

He doesn’t text Dean, but Dean texts him.

**no leads on abaddon. im getting frustrated. how can there be no leads?**

**any luck with metatron?**

**found ur windbreaker in my closet? sam must have thought it was mine**

**why would i wear a windbreaker though LOL**

**how far away r u?**

**i guess ur sleeping, its kinda late**

**i miss u be safe**

——————

Three days later and they’re fifty miles out of Lebanon.  Everyone’s settled in for the night and Castiel is sitting cross-legged in the middle of his bed, staring at his phone.  He feels restless and jumpy, his skin almost itching, and he tells himself to ignore his phone and just sleep, that they’re heading out to the East Coast tomorrow and he doesn’t have time for this.  He ignores himself and grabs his phone, typing in the name of the motel and hitting send.  Then he grabs the bottle of Jack and gets drunk.

Forty-five minutes later, he hears a familiar growl of an engine in the parking lot before it cuts off and there are three sharp raps at the door.  He hauls himself off of his bed and trips towards the door, fumbling with the knob and opening it to see Dean leaning on the doorframe, looking haggard, the skin under his eyes puffy and slightly purple with stress or exhaustion or a combination of the two.  Castiel stares at him for a few moments before Dean clears his throat and looks past him into the room.   Castiel shakes his head to clear it and walks back to the bed, sinking onto it heavily and watching Dean enter the room, glancing around it.

“This is a shithole, Cas,” Dean says, running his fingers over the top of the television and scowling at the dust that comes away on his fingertips.  His voice sounds rough, like he’d lost it and just gotten it back.

Castiel says nothing, just watches Dean as he shrugs out of his jacket.  Dean makes a circuit around the room and settles on the end of the other bed, crossing his legs at the ankles and leaning back on his hands.  He stares at Castiel, and Castiel stares back.  The alcohol has blurred the edges of Castiel’s world, and his heart breaks for the hardness in the set of Dean’s jaw, for the dullness in his eyes.  Neither of them speak for a long time, Castiel almost feels like he can’t but then Dean scratches at his arm, and the blurred edges flash red and Castiel is on his feet, hands clenched into fists at his sides.  

“You are a bastard,” Castiel slurs.

Dean sighs, like he knew this was coming and sits up and forward, uncrossing his ankles and resting his palms on his thighs.

“You’re such a bastard.  I hate you for what you’ve done.  I hate you so much.  I can barely look at you.”

“So don’t.”

“Do you even know what you’ve done?”

“Of course I do, I’m not an idiot.”

“Could have fooled me.”

“Is this why you asked me to come tonight?  So you could have it out with me?  I’ve gone through this entire song and dance with you before, Cas, and nothing ever gets solved.”

“So fix it.”

Dean stands up and crosses his arms over his chest.

  
“Fix what, Cas?  I can’t undo this, and you know it.  I have to finish what I started.”

“Well, you sure are doing a great job.”

  
“Shut the hell up,” Dean growls.  “You’re not doing so hot yourself.  It’s been, what?  Six months?  And you got zero leads and an army of flightless, powerless children following you around.  They want you to lead them, Cas.  What have you been doing?”

Castiel punches Dean.  Dean stumbles backward but catches himself quickly and blocks Castiel’s next punch easily, as Castiel is still fairly drunk.  He tries again and gets his arm pinned behind his back for his efforts, and he switches to pelting Dean with obscenities and oaths and curses in every language Castiel knows, and it goes on for what seems like years before Castiel realizes that he’s crying and his breath is hot against Dean’s neck.  One of Dean’s hands is tangled in the hair at the base of Castiel’s neck and the other is making soothing passes up and down his back underneath his shirt.

Castiel wipes his nose on Dean’s shoulder to a noise of mild protest.  He pulls away and blinks at Dean, who is staring back at him through exhausted eyes.  

“I am so angry with you, all the time,” Castiel whispers harshly.

“Welcome to the club,” Dean replies bitterly.

Castiel closes his eyes and leans forward, and Dean meets him in the middle.  Their lips slide together, Dean’s tongue licking into Castiel’s mouth desperately, and Castiel aches with the familiarity of it.  Castiel doesn’t know what to do with his hands, but he’s missed this body so he decides to take the time to map it entirely with his palms, memorizing again the lines of Dean’s shoulders, the place on his abdomen where hard muscles turn a little soft from age and newfound ease of life in the bunker, around to his arms where muscles bunch and pull from where Dean is doing the exact same explorations with his own hands.

They move together, each remembering how to pull moans and sighs out of the other, information gleaned from years of clandestine experience.  Dean mouths at Castiel’s neck, kissing down to the dip between his clavicles.  He gets to the collar of Castiel’s shirt and growls, divesting him of it hurriedly.  Castiel pulls impatiently at the hems of Dean’s shirts (always so maddeningly layered) and their pants and boxers follow.  For a moment they remain parted, panting softly, Dean’s mouth spit-slick and shining, a delicate flush coloring his chest all the way up to his cheeks.  Castiel reaches out and runs a fingertip up the bridge of Dean’s nose, following the arch of his forehead and tracing his eyebrows.  

“I hate how unworthy you think yourself,” Castiel murmurs.  “Why do you always do this to the people who love you?”  
  
Dean closes his eyes and grabs Castiel’s wrist, pressing his face into Castiel’s palm.  “Cas, don’t,” he breathes, voice strained, a furrow appearing between his eyebrows.

Castiel kisses him again, if for no other reason than to erase that angry crease on his forehead.  

——————

Afterward, they lay tangled together in the sheets, Dean’s head pillowed on Castiel’s chest.  Castiel is telling Dean about everything he sees on the road.  He tells Dean about the fields of bluebonnets in Texas, about eating lobster in Maine, about seeing the World’s Biggest Ball of Twine, about how he wasn’t very good at pool but he can hustle darts like nobody’s business.  He tells Dean about how he thinks rhubarb is his favorite kind of pie, how once this is all over he’d maybe like to live in a brownstone with flowerboxes.  He tells Dean about everything he’d left out of his text messages, and he grieves for the things that will go unsaid in the coming months, once this vulnerable bubble has popped and Dean goes home and Castiel leaves for the road.

Dean’s breathing is slow and steady and Castiel thinks he’s fallen asleep, so he closes his eyes and starts to drift when he hears, “I’m so scared, Cas.”

Castiel opens his eyes and shifts their bodies so they curve in towards each other, heads sharing one pillow.  Dean’s eyes are wide and have lost the dullness they carried earlier, replacing it with a wild and childlike terror.

“I’m so scared and I don’t know what I’m doing,” Dean whispers, curling in on himself.  Castiel reaches for him and pulls him to his chest.  They’re not good with words, neither of them, so he just holds him and tells him more about how he wants his brownstone to be once this is all over until he knows Dean has fallen asleep.  He looks down at Dean’s face and is struck, as he always is, by how young and unworried Dean looks when he’s asleep.  Castiel bites his lip and allows himself, for this moment, to pretend that they’ve won their battles and that they’re not angry with one another and that it’s just them at the end of it all, no worries more serious than whether it’s going to rain tomorrow.  In the morning Dean will leave, and Castiel will ignore his phone until his fingers itch.


End file.
